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The Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Emomotimi Agama, has decried the low participation of Nigerians in the traditional capital market.
He also lamented that less than 4 per cent of adults in the country are active investors.
This, he said, was in contrast to more than 60 million Nigerians who spend an estimated $5.5 million on gambling every day
Agama, according to a statement issued by SEC on Sunday in Abuja, raised the concern while delivering a lead paper titled: “Evaluating the Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan 2015-2025,’ at the annual conference of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS).
He said: “This reveals a paradox, an appetite for risk clearly exists, but not the trust or access to channel that energy into productive investment.”
The SEC boss also lamented that Nigeria’s market capitalisation to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio stands at about 30 percent.
Agama noted that this figure was below South Africa’s 320 percent, Malaysia’s 123 percent, and India’s 92 percent, a disparity that, he said, highlights the urgent need to deepen financial inclusion and rebuild investor confidence.
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He recalled the vision of the 10-year Capital Market Master Plan (CMMP) launched in 2015, noting that it was designed to reposition Nigeria’s capital market as the engine of economic transformation by mobilising long-term finance for infrastructure and enterprise development.
“Today, as we stand at the sunset of that ten-year plan, our task is not ceremonial; it is reflective and diagnostic,” he said.
“We must ask: what did we achieve, where did we fall short, and what lessons must anchor our next decade of reforms?”
Agama disclosed that less than half of the 108 CMMP initiatives were fully achieved due to limited alignment, inadequate metrics, and weak stakeholder ownership.
Consequently, he said despite progress in areas like Green Bonds and fintech integration, market liquidity remains concentrated in a few large-cap stocks like MTN, Airtel Africa, and Dangote Cement.
The SEC DG pointed out low retail participation, market concentration, falling foreign inflows, underutilised pension assets, untapped diaspora capital, and a widening infrastructure financing gap as key challenges for the next phase of reforms.
“Nigeria’s $150 billion annual infrastructure deficit far exceeds the market’s contribution, with only N1.5 trillion approved in PPP bonds,” he stated.
“This shows a misalignment between financial innovation and national priorities.”
By: Babajide Okeowo
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